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As the second person to fill the position of project archivist for the microfilming of the Katherine Anne Porter papers, my involvement has been mainly on the downhill side of the project, bringing it to its conclusion. That conclusion has been exciting, especially as it leads to a new beginning.

When I began as project archivist in August 1998, the prep work for Series I, Correspondence (34.5 linear feet), was finished, and all I had to tackle was Series II through VI, which amounted to 24.25 lin. ft. These series--Writings; Awards and Professional Activities; Financial and Legal; Personal; and Clippings--were logistically the more challenging ones. They contain a variety of materials that made filming more difficult, such as KAP's pasted-together research notes and manuscript drafts, galleys and page proofs, bank books and check registers, marriage certificates and passports, address books and calendars, and many years' worth of dusty newspaper clippings. The beauty of the microfilm is that now all of these various materials are easily and readily accessible. There is no more need to deal with either undersized or oversized materials, both of which can be awkward to use. Perhaps this ease will encourage scholars to increasingly consult these previously seldom-used materials and shed new light on KAP.

The final part of the project has been creating remote intellectual access to the KAP papers to facilitate use of the microfilm. After painstakingly checking every word, comma, and colon of the 185-page guide to the papers and producing a paper version, I have now mounted that guide on the Internet. Its format is numerous Web pages, which (I hope) are easily navigable. The benefit of the Web version over a paper copy is not only the remote access, but also that it is electronically searchable. A readily downloadable version is soon to come.

I have also created Web pages containing information about interlibrary loan of the microfilm and the forms that researchers need to fill out and submit. These pages should be helpful in answering researcher questions and facilitating the loan of the microfilm. While on the Web creating these pages and updating others, I also revised the page on the Katherine Anne Porter Room. This includes new text by Beth Alvarez describing the origins of the room and some of the objects it contains, along with three color photographs, also by Beth. Check out a full color photo of the infamous coffin, as well as other Porter pages, by starting at www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/ARCV/litmss.html and following the appropriate links.

Coming soon will be revised pages for the KAP Society, which will include back issues of the newsletter. View the current pages and watch for updates at www.lib.umd.edu/Guests/KAP/Welcome.html. Feel free to send suggestions or comments to me at prettig@wam.umd.edu.

The only unfortunate occurrence related to the recent completion of the microfilming project is that there is no more work for our faithful student assistant, Pascale Compere. Pascale performed the technical and bibliographic inspections of all 108 reels of film. My present position is also of limited duration, but luckily my contract extends for several more months, for the new work of loaning the film is just beginning.